“Poor boy!  God knows where he is to be found at this moment.  The noble fellow has embarked, of his own accord, on a most dangerous service, and I am as ignorant as yourself of his success.  Remonstrance and even entreaties, were of no avail.  The Admiral had great need of a suitable agent, and the good of the nation demanded the risk; then, you know, men of humble birth must earn their preferment in cruising elsewhere than at St. James’s; for the brave lad is indebted to a wreck, in which he was found an infant, for the very name you find so singular.”

“He is, however, still borne upon your books as first lieutenant?”

“And I hope ever will be, until he shall get the ship he so well merits.—­Good Heaven! are you ill Captain Howard?  Boy, a tumbler of grog here.”

“I thank you, sir,” returned the Rover, smiling calmly, and rejecting the offered beverage, as the blood returned into his features, with a violence that threatened to break through the ordinary boundaries of its currents.  “It is no more than an ailing I inherit from my mother.  We call it, in our family, the ‘de Vere ivory;’ for no other reason, that I could ever learn, than that one of my female ancestors was particularly startled, in a delicate situation, you know, by an elephant’s tooth.  I am told it has rather an amiable look, while it lasts.”

“It has the look of a man who is fitter for his mother’s nursery than a gale of wind.  But I am glad it is so soon over.”

“No one wears the same face long now-a-days, Bignall.—­And so this Mr Ark is not any body, after all.

“I know not what you call ‘any body,’ sir; but, if sterling courage, great professional merit, and stern loyalty, count for any thing on your late cruising grounds, Captain Howard, Henry Ark will soon be in command of a frigate.”

“Perhaps, if one only knew exactly on what to found his claims,” continued the Rover, with a smile so kind, and a voice so insinuating, that they half counteracted the effect of his assumed manner, “a word might be dropped, in a letter home, that should do the youth no harm.”

“I would to Heaven I dare but reveal the nature of the service he is on!” eagerly returned the warm-hearted old seaman, who was as quick to forget, as he was sudden to feel, disgust.  “You may, however, safely say, from his general character, that it is honourable, hazardous, and has the entire good of his Majesty’s subjects in view.  Indeed, an hour has scarcely gone by since I thought that, it was completely successful.—­Do you often set your lofty sails, Captain Howard, while the heavier canvas is rolled upon the yards?  To me, a ship clothed in that style looks something like a man with his coat on, before he has cased his legs in the lower garment.”

“You allude to the accident of my maintop-gallant-sail getting loose when you first made me?”

“I mean no other.  We had caught a glimpse of your spars with the glass; but had lost you altogether, when the flying duck met the eye of a look-out.  To say the least, it, was remarkable, and it might have proved an awkward circumstance.”